


Smartphone Lullabies

by lunicole



Category: Dear White People (TV)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Season/Series 01, Relationship(s), Spoilers for Chapter 10
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-10-27 02:39:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10799979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunicole/pseuds/lunicole
Summary: It's funny because the first time, if that's how Lionel should call it, doesn't even feel like how first time should be. There's none of that aggressive pounding he's seen so much of while watching gay porn, and definitely none of the dirty talk he's been fantasizing about through the thin wall that separates his and Troy's bedroom. Maybe the dirty talk isn't everyone's cup of tea, now that he thinks about it. It's surprising because knowing how Silvio likes to listen to the sound of his own voice, you'd really believe him to be the most vocal lover to have ever walked the face of the earth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I binge-watched that pearl of a comedy series in one night and had to write smut with it. I'm sorry.

It's funny because the first time, if that's how Lionel should call it, doesn't even feel like how first time should be. There's none of that aggressive pounding he's seen so much of while watching gay porn, and definitely none of the dirty talk he's been fantasizing about through the thin wall that separates his and Troy's bedroom. Maybe the dirty talk isn't everyone's cup of tea, now that he thinks about it. It's surprising because knowing how Silvio likes to listen to the sound of his own voice, you'd really believe him to be the most vocal lover to have ever walked the face of the earth.

 

Still, actual human contact turns out to be fleshy and real and incredible in a way masturbation isn't, in all the odd bits and weird moments real life implies.

 

It's nice. Silvio's nice. He's got a body that's as carefully groomed as his hair, and he's characteristically unapologetic about it. His cologne smells expensive, because  _ of course it fucking is _ and Lionel wonders how he’s never noticed it before. It’s unimportant. They're making out in Lionel's dorm room, the door politely closed, after the storm of the protest and of Troy's subsequent arrest. It feels as if the world is about to be set on fire in a way that is oddly reminiscent of whatever dumb storyline is playing on  _ Defamation _ at this very moment.

 

It's both alien and oddly familiar, to have a man straddle his hips like that, pushing him against the frame of his bed with a hunger that longs for more. Lionel knows he wants more, in that hazy, foreign way that still can't fully process everything that has just happened.

 

Silvio chuckles as he kisses Lionel's neck, lets his hands roam under his t-shirt freely, the hint of a bite to his teeth. Lionel gasps softly. There's that familiar arrogance in his demeanour when he shrugs off his shirt like it's no big deal, his coat already on the floor. Silvio smiles against Lionel's throat, and Lionel almosts expects him to purr like a cat. He doesn't.

 

"This is your first time, right?"

"...Y-Yes?"

 

There's a smile.

 

"Of course."

 

It makes Lionel wonder how often Silvio does these things. He hasn't dared to ask yet, mainly because he's scared of the exact number of Silvio's conquests. He shouldn't be. Rationally, there's nothing to be afraid of, but he's still been doing the math in his head, trying to piece together their conversations at  _ The Independent _ and the various names or mentions that had sprung from them. So far he’s got at least three in the last few months or so, plus that one time Silvio came in with the same clothes he’d worn the day before and a grey scarf tightly rolled around his neck.

 

It’s stupid. A lot of what he thinks about, around him, is stupid. In lots of ways, Lionel still feels like the odd kid out in a Star Trek costume around Silvio. He frowns.

 

"... Are you laughing at me?"

 

Silvio pauses, and looks at him. He has that single raised eyebrow he usually keeps for sassing editorials and making clever cutting quips about being a minority. It's infuriating.

 

"Girl, it's not because you've just pissed off the local white supremacy and most probably had me lose my job that everyone is out there to get you like you're the Black Panther Party."

"I'm a man."

"I guessed that from the whole you, me, Italian sausages part, Mr. Man."

 

Silvio grips Lionel's crotch for emphasis in a manner that feels both enjoyable and rage-inducing. It's a bit like most of their conversations, now that Lionel thinks about it, and how there seems to be something almost sexual about Silvio's enjoyment of dissing his articles after publication. He groans, pulls back.

 

"Why do you have to be like this?" he snaps, a little bit, without really meaning to.

"Like what?"

"... I don't know. Like, mean and cleverly fast trash-talking everyone and everything."

 

Lionel regrets instantly saying those words. There's a moment that washes over them, and suddenly Silvio's off his lap, looking down at him with an annoyed look on his face.

 

"Well I can be  _ like that _ somewhere else if you don't mind, Lionel."

 

There's an incisive quality to the pronunciation of his name that could almost hide a soft, foreign accent. Lionel suddenly remembers Silvio's animated Spanish that one time he'd caught him in his desk talking to what he guessed was a relative on the phone, the way he'd looked at him and hushed him away with an embarrassed look. It doesn't last, and he grits his teeth at his own stupidity.

 

"Wait, wait... Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

"Is this you or your hard-on speaking?"

 

Silvio's voice has that trailing mocking tone. There's a pointed look to Lionel's pants that means more than enough. He's pissed but it's not completely helpless, or so Lionel hopes.

 

"Me. Honestly, both. Whatever. It's just... You know. It's been a long night."

 

It seem they have the same thought because both of their gazes fly to Troy's bedroom door. Images of that night at the bar, of the way Troy's lips would purse when he'd talk about his father and the pressure to be perfect simply to be alive flash through Lionel's mind. Shit.

 

"Oh," Silvio says, and all that armor of cutting wits and carefully thrown shade falls down. "... I see."

 

For what seems like the first time ever, it seems like he doesn't have anything else to add. It makes Lionel panic and he jumps off the bed to grab Silvio's arm.

 

"It's not what you think," Lionel blurts out. "You were right, you know. About him being straight."

"So I'm an  _ ersatz _ fuck for your straight crush now."

"Air sat?"

"Rebound guy. God, didn't you take German last semester?"

 

Lionel’s head hurts, now.

 

"Yes. No. I mean... I mean, it's not that."

 

He breathes in, breathes out. Silvio isn't leaving just yet so he has this last chance, maybe, of setting things clear after that cinematic kiss in the middle of an hearing room. There definitely is a soap opera aspect to all of this, but it doesn't matter. Lionel has to try.

 

"I... I just wish I had it all figured it out like you. You know, labels, not drinking Windex and definitely not ending up in the middle of a dysfunctional aborted threeway relationship at some theater geeks party."

"Shit. I knew it was a bad idea to let you go alone..." Silvio scoffs.

 

The tension seems to ease a little bit, and so Lionel tries to smile, a little bit.

 

"Yeah, anyway... It's just, I know... I know I'm gay. And black. And that the intersection of all that is hard to navigate. But I do like you, not out of desperation or whatever, but because you're too good-looking, too well-dressed and too confident for me."

 

Something seems to soften in Silvio's features, and it's strange, because suddenly his palm is against Lionel's cheek in a gesture that means to be comforting. There's regret, maybe, also, a little bit, and he shakes his head silently, as if to gather his thoughts together.

 

"No one has it all figured out, ever. Some of us are just better at hiding how much of a mess we are."

 

He sighs.

 

"It's okay. I wasn't really planning on getting all sappy about, well, anything tonight, but hey, might as well be  _ maricones _ for real, hm?"

 

He shrugs and his voice sounds self-deprecating in a way Lionel has never heard it before. There's an edge of vulnerability to his face, but it doesn't last, and he closes his eyes. His palm dips to Lionel's throat, rests against his collarbone. Somehow, it feels more intimate than the kiss did before.

 

"We'll take things slow tonight, if that good with you?"

 

Lionel's breath catches in his throat.

 

"Y-Yeah," he croaks out. “That’s… That’s good with me.”

 

Silvio smiles, a real, earnest smile that's so strange to look at. "Good."

 

He kisses him, slowly again, unbuttoning his shirt with nimble, skilled fingers. His palms are rough against Lionel's skin, and it makes him shiver.  _ It's happening _ , he tells himself with a feeble manic energy in his inner voice.  _ Is this how this is supposed to be happening? _

 

They're back on the bed and Silvio's managed to free both Lionel and himself from their shirts. He's kissing Lionel's ears, now, and it feels good, sparks of ephemeral little pleasures over his body. He breathes out heavily, feels prickles of sexual tension run down his spine.

 

Lionel can only watch as he’s pulled through the moves, really. It's not Troy, obviously. Silvio is all flesh and hard angles where Troy was muscles and caramel skin, but there's a warmth to his chest as Lionel touches it that feels nicer than a fresh haircut and the intangible longing for unattainable handsome straight boys.

 

He's nervous, and he finds himself fumbling with Silvio's belt awkwardly before finally slipping it off. He doesn't have to time to do more, as Silvio's trailing kisses on his chest now, down to his navel. He shivers under the ministrations, exhaling sharply. It feels so good he bites his lips to keep himself from moaning.

 

“Don’t come too quickly, virgin,” Silvio teases as he gets to Lionel’s jeans, kneeling on the floor between his legs.. “I want to have fun with you.”

 

Lionel closes his eyes, he would make some kind of comment on how cheesy this line is if not for the surprise of having his underwear pulled down, feeling exposed in a strange and novel way.

 

It doesn’t last. Silvio’s lips are warm and wet, and Lionel gasps as he feels it against his shaft. His large hands holding Lionel’s hips down as he works his tongue on him first, one long lick from base to tip then another. 

 

Lionel finds himself worrying about how thoroughly he cleaned himself today between shivers of pleasure. He feels like he should ask if everything is alright down there, before mentally slapping himself for how stupid that would sound. Fingers circle his cock, pump once, twice. He doesn’t have the time to think about it more because his mind blanks as he feels Silvio’s mouth engulfing him.

 

“Did you just -ah!- put a condom on me with your mouth?” he asks as he looks down, aroused and puzzled.

“Safety first,” Silvio stops and answers, definitely smug. It’s something in the curve of his eyebrow, the curl of his lips. “Impressed?”

“A-Ah! Y-Yeah!?”

 

He feels a chuckle against his thigh, and he wants to say something but Silvio’s tongue cuts him up with a moan that he can’t help but to let out. The man is just that good and he knows it, that is obvious from the self-satisfied look he catches in his dark eyes looking up to him. It’s erotic in a way that Lionel can’t really put into word, and he melts into the moment.

 

Slowly, he feels himself relax into the pleasure of Silvio’s ministrations, the way his head bobs over his shaft, almost gagging in a way that is surprisingly pleasant, and how Lionel finds himself digging his hand into his black hair. There’s still the weird odd thought that he’s probably going to get scolded for this with a few snarky remarks that pop in the back of his mind. It doesn’t come, and Lionel takes vicious pleasure into fluffing it out of shape. Small victories, maybe.

 

It doesn’t take him too long to come, and he breathes sharply as he feel his orgams take over, his hand firmly on Silvio’s hair. It’s strange, different from his fantasies, but there’s a real quality to it that means everything. There’s a choking sound that startles him into letting go, then the feeling of the condom being slipped out of his dick and thrown into the trashcan. There’s the rustling of fabric, the weight of another body lying next to him.

 

“I… uh…Do you want me to…?”

“No I’m good.”

 

Silvio’s voice is cutting but his lips against Lionel’s forehead are soft, so it’s okay. Lionel looks up at him, and it hits him, how beautiful he is, all at once. It’s in the line of his jaw, maybe, the almond shape of his eyes. Maybe it’s the sex. He doesn’t know. He passes a hand over Silvio’s naked chest, feels a twitch over his skin.

 

Silvio sighs, and Lionel takes it as an invitation to kiss him. He tastes a little bit like lube, but it’s fine. Lionel still feels weird about the whole thing, and he can’t stop himself from asking.

 

“You sure you don’t want me to…?”

“Shush.”

 

Lionel frowns, rests his head against Silvio’s chest, but he obeys, lifting up his underwear over his exposed cock and zipping up his jeans. Somehow that silence seems to make the awkwardness lift from upon them, a little bit. Downstairs, there’s the sound of the  _ Defamation _ credits playing in Armstrong Parker’s common room. The crowd massed in front of the television seems to be heading to their dorms. Everyone needs a good night of sleep.

 

It feels nice, just laying there with Silvio, no matter how strange it should feel. His skin is soft, warm. Lionel still isn’t sure how he feels about him, about whatever happened at the town hall, and about what comes next. He wants to ask, but it feels wrong, and the moment ends when Silvio’s phone starts vibrating in his pocket and he picks it up, springing from the bed and away from Lionel.

 

There’s something ominous about the way Silvio frowns, and how he purses his lips before speaking.

 

“Brooke, calm down, okay,” he says tersely, already pacing in Lionel’s room. “Breathe. Then you can tell me what’s happening.”

 

He’s facing the wall and Lionel find himself observing in minute details his back. There’s a birthmark on his shoulder that is barely visible under his olive toned skin. It’s cute, in a weird way, given how strange it is to put the label cute, of all labels, on Silvio.

 

“... What do you mean they’re going to take down our website?” Silvio snaps, then bows down to pick up his shirt, already dressing himself back to leave. “Fuck... No, don’t worry, I’ll be there in a minute, don’t do anything until I’m there... Shit.”

 

He hangs up, then looks at Lionel, then at his phone again. There’s something that passes over his face, briefly, and he shakes his head. It’s weird. This entire thing is weird.

 

“I’ve got to go clean up the mess,” he sighs, picking up his leather coat from the ground.

 

Lionel nods. The “mess” means whatever’s going to happen to _ The Independent _ after the Hancocks remove their funding after the public reveal of their very interested donations for Winchester’s activities. It looks like they didn’t waste time.

 

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

 

Silvio just looks at him. It’s almost as if they’re back in the editor’s desk, bickering about articles and the moral character of a perfect journalist with clever quips. It’s almost as if he didn’t have Lionel’s cock in his throat a few minutes ago. His hair is still a bit muffled from the ordeal, but the hint of what’s under the snappy comebacks and imposing airs is gone. Lionel wonder if he’ll ever get to see it again.

 

“No, no, no. Don’t apologize, okay?” Silvio says as he finishes buttoning up his shirt. “I hate you, but what you did was fantastic. Victory blowjobs worthy and everything.”

 

Lionel pauses.

 

“Oh. Em. Thanks?”

“Don’t mention it,” Silvio winks, and it looks out of place on his features. “I’ll text you, okay?”

 

He doesn’t have the time to answer because Silvio’s running out the door and still after today’s speech it feels hard to say the things he means to say. It shuts close, and Lionel is alone. He lets himself fall back on the bed, groans.

 

The ceiling stares back at him for a few long minutes. There’s a lot on Lionel’s mind, about the events of the town hall, about what it means to sleep with your editor, if whatever just happened can be called sleeping with someone, about the hints that there’s something more to Silvio than the aggressively gay yuppie looks and the shade he throws around himself like it’s candy.

 

He looks around himself, goes for his phone on the bedside table, opens it. The shiny yellow icon of  _ Grindr _ catches his eye, but he doesn’t feel like destroying his own self-esteem with left and right swipes just yet. He opens his text message box, looks at the screen, tries to piece the right words together.

 

_ I just wanted to tell you… _

 

No, that’s not quite right.

 

_ Are we… _

 

No.

 

_ Call me if there’s anything I can do for… _

  
Shit. Lionel rolls his eyes at his own incapacity to vocalise his needs, and gives up, leaving the phone on his bedside table and heading for the computer. He’s got more articles to write tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to turn this into a longer story, no idea how long it'll end up being but it's fun to write. I guess I just have a lot of things to ramble about those two hahaha!

It’s strange to have sex with your editor, if sex can be an apt term for a hasty blowjob in his dorm room, because every single note on articles now either feels like a flirt or an accusation, or both. Lionel looks at them over his laptop screen, wonders if they’re comments on his writing or on whatever happened that night Troy got arrested. Silvio had texted, as he had promised, the next day, about how he’d have to pull some strings to get new funding but that the digital version of the journal was safe for now, at least until they’d get new sponsors after the Hancocks pulled their support.

 

They’d both still have work, but it didn’t answer any of Lionel’s more pressing questions. Lionel wants to know what this is all supposed to mean, what he’s supposed to do with the weird mix of thoughts and feelings twirling in his mind, making everything fuzzy and intangible. He wants to know if being gay, now that he’s accepted the stupid label, and black, for that matter, is as complicated as countless  _ Medium _ articles warned him it would be.

 

_ No fats, no fems, no asians, no blacks _ his smartphone screens seems to yell at him in bright yellow letters when he checks it. He exits the app with a shrug, closes his eyes.

 

“It’s not that I’m  _ racist _ ; it’s just  _ my preference _ …” he quotes mockingly under his breath, putting his phone inside his pocket to concentrate back on his work.

 

He leans back on his computer chair, and he feels weary to his very bones. It’s been a weird few weeks so far, with the unrest at Armstrong Parker turning into a potential merging of CORE and the BSU that no one would have even dared to think about before Troy’s arrest. Covering the entire thing had turned out to be more work than he’d first imagined it would be, along with end of semester cramming that was promising to be hell given how much energy he’d spent on things that aren’t his classes this semester.

 

Brooke passes him by, and she has this knowing look upon her face Lionel isn’t sure is some kind of shade for his editorial on Troy or about how she’d somehow gotten wind of the Silvio business. Lionel doesn’t want to know, honestly.

 

“Are you going to take the assignment on the Thane Lockwood Memorial Event?” she asks candidly. “I can take it from you, if you can’t.”

 

He shouldn’t take it, as he’s been falling behind on his homework for that 20th century American literature class, but he hasn’t been pulling out anything good ever since the big scoop on the Hancocks, and he knows it. Silvio knows it, and he’s surprisingly considerate, on a Silvio scale of what considerate means, that is, in the rejection notes he leaves on his drafts.

 

_ You babble so much about that single student’s feelings when bigger things like the integrity of our school’s administration is at stake. Where’s the analysis? _

 

Lionel shakes his head, turns his eyes away from the screen.

 

“I can do it. You’re already covering the literature conference lead by professor Hobbs,” he says, and she almost imperceptibly purses her lips. “I’ll… I’ll tell Silvio about it.”

 

She looks at him, unreadable, then smiles. 

 

“Sure thing.”

 

Something like terror might have shown upon his face, because Brooke looks somewhat satisfied when she turns to leave, leaving the office to grab dinner. Lionel bites his lips to keep himself from cursing, then looks at his computer screen. The notes still feel like thinly veiled insulting come-ons, and he knows most of it is entirely in his head. It seems as if the entire world is yelling at him that he has to sort things out with his editor, and if he’s to be honest with himself, he doesn’t want to.

 

He stretches his arms, gets up, grabs his bag. There’s a gaze that loses itself over the drawn blinds of the editor’s office, but it doesn’t last. He’ll text Silvio later. He’s got a candlelight vigil to attend tonight, and hopefully something mildly intelligent to write about it later.

  
  


The vigil isn’t the hot mess Lionel expected it to be. It’s maybe because besides the ridiculous riot that happened at the town hall meeting, the guys organising aren’t real-life internet trolls like the  _ Pastiche _ writing team. There seems to be a genuine concern for campus drinking culture and its occasional tragedies, a smaller, quieter crowd and considerably less entitlement in the way the event is organised.

 

While Lionel isn’t the most personally concerned about campus parties and their excesses, he still takes notes. Maybe there’s something genuinely interesting to say about the matter for the next issue of  _ The Independent _ , or at least an article that Silvio won’t rip to shreds with polite words that are more bruising for Lionel’s ego than all the sass in the world.

 

He almost extinguish his own candle as he exhales, saves it at the very last moment. His gesture seems to annoy the girl with the long hair and the small but very visible cross necklace over her white turtleneck standing next to him. He answers to her frown by a quiet look of apology, which she seems to accept reluctantly.

 

The night is fresh and the sky is clear. There’s a hint of a breeze that makes the leaves of the surrounding trees in the central courtyard sing. One of Thane’s friends talks about his father’s drinking problems on the platform with a shaky voice that looks out of place on a two hundred pounds linebacker, and it’s an earnest testimony that is cut short by a burst of tears. The football player is escorted out of the podium by a petite asian girl with large round classes that seems to be his girlfriend.

 

_ Some of us are better at hiding how much of a mess we are. _

 

Lionel cringes at how he can’t get his mind off from the Silvio situation even for a few hours. He knows he should text him, at least to tell him he’ll be covering the vigil, but he can’t.

 

“Thank you Travis,” the organiser, some engineering student involved in the University’s bible-reading group called Bill, says. “Now we’ll be having a minute of silence for Thane and the other victims of campus binge-drinking.”

 

The crowd falls quiet. Lionel looks up to the sky, finds himself a bit of a thought for Thane. They’d spoken once, the night of his death, more on Troy’s orders than from some genuine connection. Speaking might be a bit of an overstatement; Lionel had mostly half-heartedly listened to Thane babbling about football and the girls he’d had sex with over the semester. They couldn’t have been friends, ever, but it’s still a bit sad to know the big, brawny idiot is gone.

 

He’s pulled away from his thoughts by the very loud, very out-of-place ringing of his cellphone message box. Shit.

 

What seems like a thousand angry looks come his directions as he turns his notifications off, wishing to crawl underground out of shame. Cross necklace girl gives him a look as if she’s about to pray the life away from his body, and he gulps loudly, looking very, very, very apologetic. 

 

The minute ends and the gathering too. As he’s freed from the crowd, Lionel take out the offending phone, checks it. It’s Silvio.

 

_ Brooke told me you’d tell me you were covering the vigil.  _

 

_ I did. Couldn’t get in touch earlier. Sorry about that. _

 

There’s those three little dots that appear on the screen, indicating that Silvio’s taking an abnormal amount of time to answer. Lionel hates technology, all of a sudden.

 

_ No worries. I just wanted to check. _

 

False alert. Maybe he was just doing something else at the same time. Lionel sighs, and he’s about to put his phone back in his pocket when another message appears. 

 

_ Vigil should be done by now right? Wanna go grab some drinks at Grumpy’s in about an hour? _

 

Lionel pauses, and his eyes widen. … What the hell?

 

For a moment he stays still, and his breath catches in his throat. He knows this is stupid, this is just drinks and probably nothing more, given how Silvio, as most gay men he imagines, seems to give little importance to their previous sexual encounter. They haven’t talked about anything but  _ Independent _ -related topics in the past few weeks, without any indication that their random hookup meant anything to either of them.

 

Does it really not mean anything? Lionel doesn’t know. He knows he’s been mildly panicking about it on a regular basis ever since, and he definitely knows he’s been jerking off to something else than Troy without really meaning to. Soft brown eyes. The haughty yet devious smile, and the obscene sound of his mouth sucking him off.

 

Shit. He looks at his phone. This is stupid and reckless, but if there’s anything he’s learned in the past semester, it’s that sometimes being stupid and reckless is just the thing he need out of life.

 

_ Sure. See you there. _

 

He passes a hand through his short hair, cracks his back. Over his head, the night sky lights up with the full moon. He contemplates heading towards his dorm to change, opts against it. There’s a little 24-hours coffee place next to  _ Grumpy’s _ , his laptop is already in his backpack and he’s got some writing to do anyway.

  
  


Silvio’s fifteen minutes late, which shouldn’t surprise Lionel as much as it does. As an editor, Silvio’s stringently punctual, but that hadn’t kept him from totally standing Lionel up for that one not-date thing at the speakeasy. Lionel has been replaying their exchange in his head several times over as he waited at the counter, in fact, trying to find meaning out of Silvio’s sharp “No” when he’d asked him if this was some kind of date. He still doesn’t know what to make out of it.

 

_ Grumpy’s _ is surprisingly quiet, but it’s a Wednesday night, and Lionel isn’t especially knowledgeable when it comes to what to expect out of bars in general. It feels weird because he can’t help but to think how much of an outsider to whatever this gay thing is supposed to be that makes him. He hasn’t tried any kind of proper dating anyway, out of the awe and terror sex-crazed smartphone social apps inspire in him.

 

Silvio is fifteen minutes late and he’s wearing a black v-neck t-shirt under that leather jacket in a look that is a tad bit more casual than what Lionel has seen him wear around campus so far. From memory, he’s never seen Silvio in anything that didn’t have some form of flashy but tasteful way of declaring  _ I’m the kind of gay man that will write for ‘The New Yorker’ and gentrify your neighbourhoods _ . Did his editor change just to meet him here?

 

Lionel wonder briefly if he’s inventing all of this or if he’s right. Either way, he can’t really take his eyes off from Silvio’s collarbones, as he leans against the bar, a weird, not quite natural smile on his face.

 

“You came,” he states, before ordering a beer. “I take the whole memorial thing went well.”

 

Lionel shuffles awkwardly on the bar stool.

 

“It was okay… Well, at least up until my phone rang in the middle of the silent prayer, but I guess tone-deaf bad timing is a Thane Lockwood legacy, so that’s okay on my conscience.”

 

Silvio grins amusedly at the image, and somehow that makes Lionel happy for some reason he can’t quite place.

 

“Amen to Thane,” he says, before thanking the bartender handing him his bottle.

 

It’s funny to look at Silvio being seemingly relaxed. The line of his shoulders doesn’t seem as harsh, and there’s a roundness to his face that usually get overshadowed by the sharpness of his words. Lionel smiles back.

 

“Yeah, amen…”

 

They chat about inconsequential things, like Kim’s latest editorial that’s frightfully on point about the state of gender relations on campus, and how they both sort of miss the Hancock money for the paper edition that’s become thinner because of their lack of funds. It’s surprisingly nice, maybe because of how tipsy Lionel is getting, slowly but surely. It also helps that Silvio is unashamedly handsy, the tip of his fingers on Lionel’s forearm sending sparks flying through his body.

 

Their gazes get caught for a moment that lasts a little bit too long, and Lionel is instantly reminded of that surprising yet electrifying kiss they shared at the town hall. He looks down, bites his lips, then speaks up. He has to.

 

“You never got around telling me… how you fixed the website that night.”

 

Silvio looks at him, and he knows where this is going, it’s so painfully obvious to Lionel, but he doesn’t take the bait. It’s infuriating, as a lot of things about Silvio are. Lionel represses a groan of frustration as Silvio rolls his eyes, feigns a yawn.

 

“Pulled some strings, as I said before. I got some help from CS Major guy, and he managed to retrieve our data so I could set up a new domain. Then I had Peter redo the layout and Kim get us sponsors through her internship at  _ The Times _ . ”

 

Lionel stops and it’s weird because he feels wrong inside as he listens to Silvio’s words. He remembers how Silvio had managed to get the information on the  _ Pastiche  _ blackface party through some computer magic and a very interested use of his own sex-appeal. There’s the uneasy feeling that settles in his belly about how this might very much just be some kind of game to Silvio, and about how he should have known this from the start. 

 

Once again, the internet might be just right about gay hookup culture.

 

“Oh.”

 

It sounds more defeated that he first intended it to be. Silvio raises an eyebrow, and he looks a mix of annoyed and amused. Lionel sort of wish he could punch him, right now, but he can’t.

 

“You do know that if you want us to talk about the head I gave you that night, you have to say it clearly,” he says, nonplussed. “You enjoyed it, at least, I hope?”

“... I think.”

“I’ll take that as a _ yes, very much, it blew my mind, thank you _ .”

 

Lionel doesn’t laugh at that joke, if that’s even supposed to be a joke. Silvio makes a face, passes a hand through his already perfectly set hair. The gesture makes his throat more visible, inviting over the hem of his t-shirt. Lionel hates himself for noticing it. 

 

“What is it, now?” he asks, annoyed. “What’s the matter?”

“I just… I’d just like to know. Did you sleep with… No. I mean... Where are we standing right now?”

 

Silvio just looks at him, and the way he smiles is sharp and cutting, aiming for the kill in a way that seems even more vicious than usual. Lionel wonders briefly how it feels to choke on broken glass. He can imagine it clearly, now.

 

“ _ We? _ Look, honey, because we made out and I blew you once doesn’t mean that we’re getting married.”

 

Fuck. That fucking piece of shit douchebag. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Lionel feels his face warm up, from the drink and from the emotion maybe. It’s the alcohol that makes him want to cry, but he won’t. As Troy had so perfectly said, this isn’t sports or video games.

 

Maybe it shows on his face because Silvio’s face changes from snappy to seriously concerned, and it’s a weird look on him, even though it does seem genuine. It doesn’t make it easier. He tries to reach out for Lionel’s hand, but Lionel pulls away. 

 

“It’s just…” Silvio stops himself from talking mid-sentence, shakes his head.

 

Silvio groans, looks up, and now that Lionel thinks about it, it’s probably the first time he’s seen him at loss for words. Lionel can’t help but to think about the almost gagging sound of his throat against his dick he’s been masturbating over for almost a week straight now.

 

“I don’t do this whole pinning thing, okay.” 

 

He has this posed, stern, affirmative tone that comes straight from the newsroom. 

 

“You’re smart, you’re cute, you’re really fucking sexy when you take a stand for what you believe is right, but I’m not getting my hopes up for a relationship that won’t lead anywhere.”

 

Shit, it hurts. It shouldn’t hurt this bad, but it does. It’s at moments like this one that Lionel is reminded of how powerful words can be, and how Silvio is so skilled at throwing them like lethal weapons. It’s worse because he knows Silvio isn’t lying, the brash, upfront, self-confident, handsome piece of shit he is.

 

“You don’t think I’m worth more than just… that?” Lionel’s voice almost breaks. He hates when that happens. “Victory blowjobs or whatever?”

“... No! Shit!” 

 

There’s a pause during which Silvio looks at him and Lionel’s not sure how to read him. Silvio’s keeping himself from talking too loud, but it seems to be difficult for him. There’s a few gazes in their direction that makes him lower his tone into a quieter speech, and he tries to look calm even though he’s nothing but.

 

“I’m just telling you that I won’t drag you into anything you don’t sincerely want, Lionel. Sex is great, and I’m completely okay with staying on the casual side, but if you want more, you have to at least say it. I’m not going to run after some kid that would rather be sleeping with their straight roommate than with me.”

 

Lionel feels like he’s been thrown into a cold shower, and at last the puzzle falls back into place. It’s weird because it’s that vulnerability he’s seen last time again that peak from the icy stares and snappy comebacks, as if Silvio’s wearing an armour made of deliberate fashion choices and sarcastic endearment terms. Because he is wearing such an armour, now Lionel knows.

 

_ Some of us are better at hiding how much of a mess we are. _

 

Lionel doesn’t speak for a few moments, stunned. Then, without really thinking about it, he’s kissing Silvio, eyes closed, hand upon his cheek. There’s no resistance, no pull away, and it’s nice to feel intimately how Silvio is nowhere near as hard as he project himself to be. Their lips taste like beer, and the slight scruff under his fingertips hides warm skin. Lionel briefly considers letting his hand wander down, upon the soft line of his collarbone, dragging over his shoulder.

 

It feels like a millennia has gone by before he pulls away, slowly, his hand slipping off Silvio’s face. It’s there again, the softness of his sun kissed round face and almond eyes, full lips and a hint of a hesitant smile on his mouth. It doesn’t last. 

 

Silvio smiles, sly as ever, picking his beer from the counter and sipping it with a look that tries to look knowing but really is just sort of startled.

 

“Is this a thing now? Shutting each other up with makeouts like we’re white people in a romcom?”

 

It is sort of funny, and Lionel laughs, but mostly because he feels awkward doing anything else.

 

“I don’t know, maybe?”

“I’m not against it, by the way,” Silvio says, and he has that flirty tone that Lionel can’t decide is serious or humourous.

 

He sense Silvio’s hand on his shoulder as he drowns the remaining of his beer, closes his eyes. It feels good. It might be a mistake, but it feels good, and if there’s anything college is for, in lots of ways, it’s to make mistakes. Lionel eases into the touch, heaves into the warm air of the bar, feels himself relax, a little bit.

 

Silvio picks up his tab later that night, and afterwards they messily make out in an alleyway, bodies warm in the cool air. It’s filthy in a way that clashes with Silvio’s usual polished speech and appearance. Maybe it the black t-shirt that makes him like that, Lionel considers briefly as he cups of feel of Silvio’s ass, with the definitive conclusion that his editor does work out on the regular. Somehow they don’t quite get to fuck there, even though Lionel quietly wants them so bad to, as Silvio stops them to look around, and exhale loudly.

 

“Okay, okay…” 

 

He bites his lips, shakes his head as if to sober himself up. There’s a bit of hesitation, and it’s weird, because Silvio doesn’t strike Lionel as someone who hesitates in any way, but it’s interesting to realise, slowly but surely, that he’s as human as anyone else.

 

“Let’s just… Let’s just go back to my place.”

 

Lionel nods, and he takes his hand as they leave for the unknown of what relationships and humans are supposed to be. It’s an exciting road ahead, Lionel can’t help but to think, and he’s still nervous, still a bit of a wreck when it comes to feelings, but somehow he feels like he can work this out, now.


	3. Chapter 3

Lionel, over that short period of time that stretches between Thanksgiving and Finals Week, comes to discover new little things about Silvio that never fail to surprise him. It’s how new relationships are supposed to be, he’s learned, and he wonders if that means he’s in a relationship with Silvio, whatever the word relationship is supposed to mean in the 21st century. They’re not, in any way, Instagram, Facebook or even Snapchat official, but Lionel’s heartbeat goes crazy whenever he sees a text from him, inviting him over for the night. 

 

He’s not sure what it’s supposed to mean, if Silvio’s feelings, in all the weird ways they seem to function, are the same. Silvio’s a bit of a mystery, still, from the odd little attentions that contrast sharply with the snappy comebacks whenever Lionel asks too many questions. The incertitudes are both unnerving and exciting, in a way that can only really be understood from the slightly masochistic streak Lionel knows he has within himself. 

 

Still, life is good, and his hormone-filled brain can’t get enough of the mind-blowing sex they’re having on a regular basis. He gets to map more of Silvio’s body, the exciting little discoveries of first touches, the trimmed chest and, possibly, what exact pressure on the base of his cock tips him over the edge. It’s nice. He’s still not fully sure of whatever he’s doing, but he’s having fun, and Silvio isn’t complaining, which is something Lionel is pretty sure he would do in a heartbeat if he needed to. Still, Silvio is, after all, nothing if not a considerate lover, and the way he kisses him as his hands pumps both of them to orgasm is intimate, caring in a way that make Lionel’s knees weak just by thinking about it.

 

He learns that Silvio lives off-campus in some bold move that shouldn’t be so impressive to Lionel, even though it really is. His apartment is situated in one of those ancient brick apartment complex in which both large families of immigrant workers catering to the several campuses of the large East Coast town and trust-fund white hipsters in search of a meaning post graduation live. Its location is somewhat far from the Winchester campus, which partly explains the dark circles he’s seen under Silvio’s eyes every end of the semester and his owning of a used but well-kept motorcycle.

 

He also learns that he’s here on some sort of prestigious national writing scholarship, although the exact circumstances in which he’s received said scholarship is still nebulous to Lionel. Silvio aims to be a journalist, and a great one for sure, but it’s painfully obvious that his true passion is poetry. It’s all in the little things, from the way he speaks about how he hates most spoken-word events to the little inconspicuous one dollar notebooks he hides in pockets, desk drawers and bookshelves around himself. 

 

It’s endearing in a way Silvio shouldn’t be, as Lionel watches him getting dressed. It’s Saturday and he’s got some homework to do, but he’s feeling lazy today and, unlike Silvio, he’s nowhere near being a morning person. Lionel looks up from the bed with a hazy, half-asleep look. The sheets are too nice, still warm from the both of their bodies entwined at night.

 

“Morning appointment?”

 

Silvio looks at him with a sharply raised eyebrow.

 

“No, just going out for a run.”

 

Another surprise. Well, not really, as Silvio obviously keeps himself in shape in that subtle but noticeable way that’s typical of him. Lionel still has a hard time understanding how he’s a real person at times like these, but it’s one of the quirks that keeps it interesting for him to dig a little bit deeper into whoever his editor is, after all.

 

“On a Saturday morning?”

“I don’t do days off, honey,” he grins back, but there’s a playful tone to his voice. “Get used to it.”

 

Lionel sighs. He almost makes a comment about how last night was, to him at least, an impressive bit of a workout, but once again he’s the skinny out of shape nerd in their relationship. All he manages is that kicked puppy look that Silvio catches in the mirror as he buttons his shirt. It makes him turn around, sigh.

 

It’s funny because Silvio is nowhere near as much of a cutting smartass as he might think himself to be, once you get to really know him. He hates cats, dogs, and any kind of furry creature for that matter, but his apartment is tastefully decorated with ferns and succulents Lionel knows have individual names and personalities assigned to them. It’s shocking at times, to see how much minutious but discrete care Silvio lavishes over his plant babies for one moment before turning to his laptop to write a murderous editorial on the school’s administration policies or the excesses of the latest frat party.

 

“Alright. I’ll go later,” he admits, defeated. “Would you like us to be perfect basics and get brunch or something like that?”

“... Maybe?” Lionel says with a smile.

 

Silvio shakes his head, chuckles. There’s moment where he seems to think something over, his eyes on the ground, before he looks at Lionel once more.

 

“Sure. Let me fix us something.”

 

He passes by the bed to press a quick kiss on Lionel’s forehead before heading towards the kitchen space. Lionel briefly thinks about pulling him back in bed, doesn’t do it. He could, as Silvio hasn’t fussed over his hair for a good fifteen minutes as it is customary for him to do every morning yet. He lets himself fall back into light slumber, only to be shaken out of bed by the smell of fried eggs, tomato sauce and cilantro filling the air slowly. 

 

Silvio’s kitchen is, as the rest of the small living space in his studio apartment, aesthetically messy, a bit like a quirky repurposed-slash-DIY interior decoration magazine. It’s neat, but in a way that looks odd with the otherwise carefully calculated image Silvio applies to himself at Winchester. He’s got an herb garden over the windowsill and a luscious fern on the countertop which doubles as a dining table in brightly coloured pots. His library, with tall heavy artbooks and second-hand paperbacks is made up of repurposed crates hanging from the wall. There are no personal photographs anywhere in the home, which strikes Lionel as strange, although he’s never asked why, out of some weird sense that this is a sensitive topic.

 

He sits at the counter, still half awake. Silvio is very specific about coffee, and Lionel isn’t sure if it’s because he’s allegedly half-Italian or just really good at pretending to be white. Lionel sips the warm drink, and it’s sugary and milky the way he usually takes it, to Silvio’s infinite eyerolls. It’s okay. The sun shines through the cool air outside, and Silvio brings him a neatly arranged plate of fried eggs with tomato sauce on toast. The presentation screams hours of pinterest browsing and way too many hashtags on Instagram, but it’s part of the charm, in a way.

 

“Wow,” Lionel says.

 

Silvio is as unapologetically vain about his cooking than he is about his writing. He smiles, but it’s not exclusively for show, maybe.

 

“I shouldn’t spoil your lazy butt like that, you’ll pick up bad habits,” he notes as he sprinkles some freshly cut coriander over the both of their plates. “What are your plans for the day?”

 

Lionel picks up a piece of egg dipped in tomato sauce, eats it. He closes his eyes, represses a moan. It’s delicious.

 

“I don’t know, head back to my dorm, take a shower, cram for my French literature exam, maybe. Also, gosh... What did you put in that tomato sauce? It’s so good.”

 

A small laugh loses itself on Silvio’s lips, just like that. It’s soft and warm, like Silvio sometimes allows himself to be. He’s toying with his food for a moment as he speaks, mindlessly. It’s a thing he does a lot, but only when he thinks no one is watching, which is like a lot of little things Silvio does, now that Lionel is thinking about it.

 

“Fresh Lime juice and chili powder is the secret. Mark hated it, but, you know, fuck him.”

 

Lionel sips his coffee, and suddenly it seems to taste so bitter. 

 

“Mark?” he asks, innocently enough.

 

Silvio shrugs the matter away, but there’s still this weird ball that’s forming in Lionel’s stomach. He ignores it, eats his food.

 

“Some guy I used to date during freshman year. By the way, is that pedantic old Swiss guy still lecturing for that French literature class? What’s his name… Genequant or something?”

“Yeah, still the same.”

 

It’s enough of an answer to send Silvio into a long rant about his elective classes and how he should have listened to reason and majored in economics to begin with. Lionel listens to him half-heartedly, but he’s good at hiding how he feels. The tangy taste of lime on his tongue hides more questions that he doesn’t dare ask. He doesn’t want to know exactly why he feels like that.

  
  


Lionel gets to his dorm by noon, and he takes a long, warm shower during which he briefly consider stealing some of Troy’s marijuana to smoke the hazy sense of existential unease that he feels coursing through him. He lets the water wash over him, closes his eyes. It’ll pass. Downstairs, Black AF is hosting some sort of afternoon poetry slam and he can hear bribes of it as he turns of the water. He dries himself up, gets dressed in his Sunday sweatpants and hoodie, sits on the toilet bowl to check his social media. There’s a fleeting thought that goes to Silvio’s tiny notebooks, and Lionel grits his teeth for it. It’s stupid.

 

“Hey, somebody in there?” Troy’s voice, accompanied with a light knock on the door of their shared bathroom, calls out.

 

Lionel jumps up, startled. 

 

“Yeah, uh, sorry. I’ll get out soon if you need the bathroom.”

 

There’s that confident laugh. It grates on Lionel’s nerves more than it should.

 

“No, it’s chill, I was just wondering if you were there, sorry about that.” Troy pauses. “Not too hungover and everything, or maybe shell-shocked from another theater freak incident?”

 

Small silence. Lionel can almost see Troy frowning from the other side of the door. He rises to open it, looks up at his roommate.

 

There must be something on his face as he does because Troy looks concerned. He does that single raised eyebrow thing that makes him look like a classic Hollywood star, and Lionel wonders if he knows about his not-so-secret crush on him over the past semester. Probably, but Troy’s always been a politician at heart, and he’s fairly diplomatic about the entire deal in not mentioning any of it, ever.

 

“Oh shit, you okay?”

 

Lionel’s eyes are shifty, and it’s so painfully obvious that he’s not.

 

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“You sure? You know you can talk to me.” 

 

He has this awkward chuckle that remind Lionel of his own. It’s strange to think that Troy might be able to feel any sort of unease.

 

“Even, you know... the gay stuff, even though I’m probably not the best to give advice for it.”

 

Lionel has this spark that flash through his mind where he realises that there’s no butterflies anymore in his stomach just from Troy’s words. It’s both an ominous and liberating feeling. He looks at Troy, then at the white tiles of the bathroom.

 

_ I’m not going to run after some kid that would rather be sleeping with their straight roommate than with me. _

 

Troy’s palm falls heavy on his shoulder as he stays silent, and Lionel has a brief thought for how it might have affected him a few short months ago. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, uneasy. Troy picks it up, because of course he does, shakes his head with a commiserating smile.

 

“Come on, man, you’ve listened to me whine about girls so many times, I don’t mind hearing out your boyfriend troubles, if you need me to.”

 

It lifts a little bit of Lionel’s apprehensions, somehow. He sighs.

 

“Boyfriend is optimistic…” He pauses. “... It’s complicated.”

 

Troy pats his back, a knowing look on his face. It’s funny because Lionel would be lying to himself if he didn’t acknowledge how there’s still that underlying giddiness that comes with being around Troy, but somehow it’s doesn’t feel like the crushing attraction from earlier this year. He’s not sure what to make out of it but it doesn’t matter. 

 

“I got you, I got you… Alright, let’s play some  _ Street Fighter _ and you can tell me all about it, is that good?”

 

Lionel smiles, a bit.

 

“Yeah, it’s good.”

 

They’re sitting on Troy’s bed, eyes on the television, a few rounds in already, when Lionel finally feels like he can talk about all of this.

 

“Your editor, really? The guy that caught us trying to steal his --- Fucking hell!”

 

Troy still does those weird Tourette outbursts when he gets hit on screen. Lionel shrugs it away nowadays. They must have played at least ten hours of  _ Super Smash Bros. _ after Troy had come back from that detention stint after the town hall now, in the meantime unpacking Troy’s feelings about, well, everything that had happened since.

 

“Scotch, yes,” Lionel finishes. 

 

There’s a few more buttons pressed, and the familiar K.O. sound rings through Troy’s speaker system. Lionel’s a beast when he plays with Ryu and he knows it, although Troy does put up a good fight.

 

“Shit. Wait, so you’re dating your boss who has a butt plug in his work desk?” Troy laughs a little bit. “What is that, like,  _ Fifty Shades of Grey _ ?”

 

Lionel feels his cheeks warm up at that comment, in a bit of embarrassment and maybe some annoyance. He thinks about Silvio saying something specific and mean about the morality of having an affair with a lesbian faculty member, then about how they haven’t had anal sex yet.

 

Lionel groans. 

 

“... At least a stupid contract would make things clear.”

 

_ Mexican-Italian Gay Verse Top Otter Pup. _ It’s one of those label issues again, as it always seems to be with Silvio. Troy starts another game, still smirking about the entire ordeal, and Lionel wonders if Troy can understand what it feels like to have to pick up a box in order to escape another.

 

“So your issue is that your relationship status isn’t clear?”

“Yeah… No… Not really. I don’t know. It’s just---”

“Shit-faced dick! … Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

 

Lionel’s good at combo attacks, and he smiles.

 

“No worries. Anyway, it’s just that he casually talked about some ex-boyfriend this morning and it felt weird, you know?”

“Jealous weird?”

“Maybe. It’s just that it’s my first real relationship and it obviously isn’t his, and I can never quite know if he likes me or just tolerates me for some reason.”

 

Troy pauses the game, suddenly. He turns to look at Lionel, and he’s serious. 

 

“You know… And sorry if it sounds a little bit harsh, but are you sure you’re not projecting your insecurities onto that poor guy, brother?”

 

Lionel puts down the controller, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, a little bit unnerved.

 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I mean talk to him, Lionel. Ask him how he feels about you. Then you can know if your fears are real or not.”

 

It’s sound advice, which shouldn’t surprise Lionel as much as it does, now that he thinks about it. Troy likes to ramble about how he has to put up a poster boy front of socially acceptable, unthreatening stoic black masculinity, but he’s surprisingly insightful when it comes to emotional management. Lionel sighs.

 

“You’re right,” he admits, then picks up his controller to start the game again, ending the conversation. “Anyway, I’m still going to kick your ass, Chun Li.”

 

Troy chuckles, before being surprised by a nasty sucker punch on his avatar on screen. Lionel still finds him ridiculously handsome, and he still feels that light pull of lust from looking at his face, but Troy feels more like a regular guy to him now and less like a masturbatory fantasy. Maybe that’s what being friends is like, and it dawns upon Lionel that having Troy as a friend is infinitely more rewarding that whatever his crush on him ever was. It makes him smile, a little.

 

Lionel receives a text from Silvio later that night, as he’s actually studying, and it’s weird, how butterflies flutter in his stomach as he looks over the screen.

 

_ Good luck on your exam! _

 

There’s an animated gif of Nicki Minaj saying something about keeping it real that Lionel skips over, laughing a little bit. There’s always a bit of ambiguity in how Silvio idolizes pop stars, half-serious with very gay glee, half-ironic about the entire ordeal.

 

_ (Also, thanks for this morning. It was nice. Hit me up when you’re free. xoxo) _

 

Lionel doesn’t know what to do, for a moment, and he thinks about Troy’s comment on his own insecurities. His mind shifts to Silvio, and his little quirks, the plants in the bright pots, how sometimes his smiles don’t feel as cutting as they are when he tears articles to shred with a few snappy remarks when they’re together. He thinks about the smell of breakfast in his apartment, the smell of his cologne, the taste of coffee prepared exactly how Lionel likes it. 

 

Beyond the sex, it’s the little things, maybe, that make whatever they have more tangible. Lionel isn’t sure of what he wants out of this, and maybe at some point they’ll talk about it, but it’s nice to start slow, for now. That fact makes him adventurous, all of a sudden, and he texts Silvio back with a self-satisfied smile on his lips.

 

_ Will do <3. _

  
There’s a moment during which he can’t help but to think about how  _ so ridiculously gay _ this makes him, but for once, he doesn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not sure about where I want to take this but I'm into the whole idea of becoming friends with your former crushes, so yeah, hahaha!


	4. Chapter 4

Lionel is back in New Jersey for the holidays, and it’s strange, because he’s turned this over in his head a few times in the last month or so but it’s still hard to put into proper words. Nothing’s changed, Mom’s still the same, and so is his bedroom, the fluorescent plastic stars over his ceiling he’s put there years ago staring back at him in the darkness. He’s agreeably full from the ridiculous amount of leftovers they still have in the fridge from New Year’s Eve, his phone abandoned on his bedside table. He has a brief thought that maybe he should pull out his laptop and write, opts against it. It’s already past one in the morning and he really should sleep.

 

He wonders what Silvio is doing right now, all of a sudden, if he's the kind of person who owns ugly Christmas sweaters or if he gets drunk on punch out of boredom. He wonders about what his family looks like, if his mom makes the same kind of overly sweet fruitcake as Lionel's, what his three sisters, which he briefly mentioned at some point, look like. It's a weird kind of thought, Lionel can't help but to think, because Silvio, for all the talking he does on the regular, during sex or not, never spoke much about his family to Lionel.

 

Lionel knows that Silvio's mom is the one that sends him canned tomato sauce in the mail as a sign of motherly love, and he knows that she's the one who calls the most, speaking in quick-fire Spanish directly from LA to Silvio's mild embarrassment. Lionel also knows that Silvio's three older sisters are, in birth order, called Marina, Christina and Paola. Silvio, being the only one studying out of California, gets the occasional phone call from Marina, his favorite, during which they both lament their ambitious career plans. It's strange, because Lionel never quite gets how Silvio can be both ridiculously driven when it comes to work and studies, while also making time for what seemed like wild nights out before he'd started dating Lionel.

 

There's still that uncomfortable feeling in his chest whenever he thinks about Silvio's previous conquests, but it's manageable. He hasn't been able to talk about it with him yet, with finals and work. The latest surprise on campus had been a new publicity stunt from Sam White and the BSU in the wake of the new immigration laws making Rashid's return home from the holidays impossible. Covering the slow but steady falling apart of their alliance with CORE had been a handful, especially given Troy's more conservative friends' inflammatory declarations about Muslims and national security. In lots of ways, things never did manage to change.

 

Lionel looks up at his ceiling again, sighs. It's pointless, and so he picks up his phone, looks at his messages, finds nothing new. He considers browsing a few guys in the sea of low self-esteem that is the internet for a short moment, opts against it. He's not in the mood, and it feels weird, even though he's pretty sure it isn't technically cheating if they haven't declared themselves boyfriends officially.

 

There's a brief moment when something like a brash need to do something crazy washes over him. He deletes the app, puts his phone down once again as if he's done something naughty. Somehow it feels good to do so, making him feel lighter as he closes his eyes, and lulls himself to sleep.

 

 

The next day, he's in his pyjamas binge-watching  _ Star Trek: The Next Generation _ with a nostalgia that feels familiar. He remembers the Kirk/Spock fanfiction he'd read in high school with a bit of nostalgia, and wonders how it all fits in whatever his sexual orientation is supposed to be, now.

 

_ Gay Verse Top Otter Pup _ . It seems so easy, said like that.

 

Data is saying something charming about the morality of being a robot trying so desperately to be human when his phone rings with the familiar ringtone he's associated with Silvio's number. He pauses the stream, looks at his messenger app, raises an eyebrow.

 

_ Wish you were here. xoxo _

 

There's a picture of him shirtless with a very ridiculous, yet somewhat fitting Santa hat in the middle of the desert, a slight pout to his face. It's oddly endearing. Silvio had mentioned he'd be spending New Year's Eve in Las Vegas as some sort of traditional celebration gesture with a few childhood friends. It had made Lionel a tad bit uncomfortable in a way he hadn't vocalized, really, although he'd done his best to put those feelings aside. He knows it's irrational, because they haven't talked about exclusivity or anything yet, even though it's pretty obvious that neither Lionel or Silvio weren’t seeing anyone else last semester.

 

Silvio looks like he has some smudged leftover makeup on his face, and it makes Lionel wonders if he's still drunk right now. Most probably, and there's a definite Regina George vibe to his whole getup, Lionel realizes, all of a sudden.

 

_ Me too. _

 

Lionel sends a picture of himself fake-kissing the screen of his laptop next to Data's face. He can't stop smiling as he looks over the three dots indicating that Silvio's writing.

 

_ Nerd. Though I'm totally guilty too. Captain Kirk can get his prime directive my way any day yknow. _

 

Lionel laughs, even though it isn't the first time they've had this conversation. They'd watched a few episodes together,  _ Netflix & Chilling _ over the course of two days between their last finals and their rides back home for the holidays. Silvio had complained the entire time, obviously, proclaiming that the Spanish-dubbed Spock was far superior to the modern, Zachary Quinto version, all gay sympathies set aside.

 

_ Original Series is over-rated. Are you sober right now? _

 

_ Semi. Had Bloody Maries for brunch ;). Welcome back to LA. You should try it sometimes. _

 

Of course.

 

_ I'll pass, thanks. Decadence looks better on you anyway :P. _

 

_ Don't diss California until you've tried it, bae <3. _

 

There's a moment during which Lionel thinks over about what it means, if Silvio is talking about bringing him to his hometown or just bantering with him as usual. He can't know. There's still an uneasy feeling about the whole Vegas trip in the pit of his stomach. He attempts to be smooth about it, feels like he's failing miserably as he tries to type something out. He shrugs, suddenly feeling strange about the entire thing.

 

_ Maybe sometimes. Gtg family duties calling. See you soon! _

 

It isn't a lie, strictly speaking. Lionel should be spending more time with his mom before the end of the break. More importantly, he can't help but to think that he should come out, properly maybe, to her, now that he's sure, at last. He knows she's one of those middle-class minority Hillary-voting liberal, and he knows it shouldn't be such a huge deal, but there's always something stuck in his throat whenever he thinks it's the right time to talk about all of this.

 

Lionel pockets his phone, turns off his laptop. He stretches himself out of bed with a loud groan, rolls his shoulders. There's snow covering the garden outside, and he thinks of sunsets over the desert and of Silvio's chest against the horizon. He shakes the vision away, closes his eyes. There's still a few hours left of sun, and he's promised he'd help shovel the entryway yesterday already.

 

 

The AASU organises a welcome-back party over a potluck of Christmas leftovers at Armstrong-Parker, and Lionel should be happy about it, even though he's not, not fully at least. He hasn't managed to properly do this coming-out thing, in fact. It's like sometimes the words won't come out of his throat, as he looks at his mom and feels like the moment is right. He'd packed his things to go back to college with a weird knot in his stomach, kissed her goodbye as she repeated how proud seeing him succeed in life made her and how she couldn't wait to attend his graduation ceremony. He'd smiled and nodded, and the ride back to campus had been spent in a daze of revision over the forms for his electives and wandering thoughts for the state of unrest within campus.

 

Kelsey's cupcakes are decadent, because it seems like he's the only person on campus not to be a professional chef, and he bites into one of them with his eyes closed. It's still weird. There’s a joint-meeting planned later this afternoon, and the ominous sense that something is missing. There's none of Rashid's familiar foreign accent and light yet corrosive little observations about coming to America, the action in itself and the Eddie Murphy movie he’d somehow ended up hate-watching upon an ill-advised Armstrong-Parker resident suggestion.

 

There's some chatter about the recent events on campus, with the planned joint occupation of the library by the BSU and the Muslim Student Association. It makes Lionel almost groan when hears Pastor Kordell make a comment about the futility of violence, because peaceful protest is, in the eye of the media, at least, a prerogative of whites and Christians.

 

"Don’t get involved. You know it’s pointless with Pastor Kordell.”

 

Lionel turn to see Joelle looking at him. She changed her hair, and it looks nice, Lionel notices. Her box braids have some blond streaks now, and she’s pulled them up in a bun over her head. It makes Lionel wonder how are things with Reggie and Sam, now. He's heard rumors, but he's tried not to pry too much. It's none of his business.

 

"I know, I know. It's just... frustrating sometimes."

 

Joelle laughs.

 

"Try having to deal with CORE all the time. Though you used to be Troy Fairbanks’ number one fangirl, so I'm pretty sure you'd have a blast. How's your boyfriend, by the way?"

 

Lionel almost drops the remaining few bites of cake in his hand.

 

"Boyfriend?" he chokes.

 

Joelle pointedly ignores his bewildered look, keeps talking.

 

"Latino guy you brought a few times for  _ Defamation _ night. What's his name? Sergio?”

“Silvio” he corrects her, and he surprises himself at how annoyed his own voice sounds.

 

She raises her eyebrows, and there is a bit of shade thrown in there, although it’s always in good sport when Joelle does that.

 

“Pale face on Wednesday night at Armstrong-Parker usually means serious relationship, you know that. Though you're nowhere near as dramatic as Sam, so there's that. She's all about setting precedents."

 

There's something bitter, a little bit, about how she talks about Sam's breakup with Gabe, but Lionel tries not to read into it too much. Apparently, Reggie tried to take on the occasion to get it on with her, without success. Joelle’s gracious about how she handles herself around the two of them, but there’s something more about her demeanor that reminds Lionel of himself whenever he lets himself think about Silvio’s sexual history a little bit too long.

 

"I, em... Yeah. It's good."

 

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose nervously.

 

" 'It's good', really? You're not giving me more juicy gossip than that?"

“I don’t know, there isn’t much gossip to be had. We texted over the break and he’s taking a few extra days in LA before his classes start?”

 

Joelle rolls her eyes, and Lionel doesn’t really know what to say.

 

“You’re not very good at this gay thing, but having a GBF is more of a middle-class white girl thing anyway.”

 

She isn’t wrong. Lionel smiles a little bit, then thinks about how he failed to come out to his mom over Christmas, no matter how much he wished he could have done so.

 

“Probably. But yeah. I’m writing this piece about Rashid for  _ The Independent _ , do you think you could give me an overview of what the BSU is planning to help him out?”

 

Joelle smiles.

 

“Sure. But let’s get out of here first. You’re a dirty little liar, Lionel, and you have to tell me all the nasty details about how you ended up sleeping with one of the Jonas Brothers.”

 

 

In the evening, Lionel retreats to his room after a long chat with Joelle and a bottle of vodka for a well-deserved rest and some revision for his article in the making. He peers over his notes with a frown. It's strange because Silvio's strange about notes, still both a flirt and a mean-spirited sass-machine at the same time. He's not sure what to make of the bolded sentences and calls for stronger vocabulary. Silvio's all about objectivity, whatever that is supposed to be, yet this time there's something personal about the topic, it seems.

 

Lionel has to keep himself from jumping to dumb generalizations based on Silvio ethnicity, and he fails at it. His eyes float over strong words like "human rights violations" and "segregationist policies" in his editor's notes, and something inside his stomach churns. He feels like he needs to ask, but the words are hard to come by. He checks his phone, looks at Silvio's number, turns it off only to turn it back on again. He feels likes such an idiot.

 

He takes a deep breath before dialing, because sometimes text messages aren't enough, so it seems. It's weird. They haven't really ever talked on the phone, now that he thinks about it, and he has a fleeting thought for what Silvio's voicemail message sounds like. He doesn't get to know.

 

"I hope this isn't some gross drunk-dialing, though I do think you look kinda cute when you're tipsy and flustered."

 

Silvio is as delicate as ever. It's funny, how he can be both so vulgar and such a snob at the same time, but at the same time these weird quirks have grown on Lionel quite a bit. His voice on the phone is, however, somewhat softer than when they speak in person, and it makes

 

"Very funny, but no."

"Sure thing. Then why the late-night call? It's rather late in Massachusetts right now."

"It's... I don't know. I feel like I wanted to talk to you," he lies.

 

Silvio makes "aw!" that noise people usually keep for babies and small animals on the other side of the line. Lionel really can't tell if it's mocking or genuine, as most things ever are with Silvio.

 

"That sounds like you drunk-dialing me. I'm honored, really. Another bender with Troy?"

"We stick to video games nowadays, thanks for asking."

 

Silvio scoffs audibly.

 

"Nerds. But get to the point, Lionel. You're starting to sound like one of Steven's articles."

Silvio's cutting as usual, and Lionel sighs.

 

"Talking about articles... I wanted to know if I can get an extension for the editorial on the Rashid Bakr petition circulating around campus."

 

There's a distinct silence on the line that's out of character for his editor. Silvio always seems to have something clever to say when they talk about The Independent. It's always weird to see him stop talking, even though Lionel's slowly but surely realising that the guy he's both working with and sleeping with might be a human being after all.

 

"Sure," he says sharply. "We can run it next week if you need more time."

 

Silvio doesn't do extensions, Lionel knows it for sure, but what hits him the most is his tone. He's not supposed to try to measure his words like that, like he's trying to hide something.

There's something wrong, all of a sudden, but neither of them will say it out loud. It's weird, because Lionel tries to change the topic to something light-hearted, like the fact that Silvio's turned into an avid  _ Defamation _ fan right under his nose, but fails to lift the heavy weight that seems to be hanging between their voices.

 

"I love you," Lionel blurts out without really thinking about it as they're about to say goodbye.

 

It makes Silvio pause, because they've never really thrown that kind of loaded words at each other in the past. Lionel can almost see him frown and suddenly he wishes he could bury himself alive. This was a mistake, maybe.

 

"I love you too," Silvio says slowly, as if he's picking up his words wisely. "Sweet dreams."

 

He hangs up and Lionel can feel his heart beat wildly inside his rib cage. It's an odd kind of happiness that washes over his body, like mild fever, in a way. It's strange and novel because Silvio still is Silvio, with his sharp tongue and his dry wit, but he's also something more, wild nights and lazy mornings, texts at dawn and make out sessions over the soft blue glow of a laptop screen. It's the uncertainty, too, of what he means to Silvio and maybe, more importantly, of what Silvio means to him, that makes him this way.

 

He sighs, looks at his phone, puts it over the desk and closes his eyes. His article lies unfinished in his laptop, but it doesn't matter. He'll work this out soon.

 

Outside, there's a snow storm brewing for the first day of class following the break, and Lionel watches it for a moment before taking off his glasses and getting ready for bed. As he brushes his teeth, he has a fleeting thought for Rashid's comments about how much the East Coast made him miss Kenyan weather. Whatever it is that happened to him isn't fair, Lionel knows, but he's still struggling to understand what angle would work best, and what to do about the digital sticky notes stuck all over his first draft.

 

He imagines Silvio uttering the words  _ I'm emotionally compromised _ in a Spock costume for a brief moment, and it makes him grin a little bit without really alleviating the unease in his chest. He remembers Spanish-dubbed Star Trek, Silvio's voice on the phone, the rare genuine smiles.

 

That night, he dreams vivid, sexually charged dreams which only leave a strange, hazy aftertaste upon waking. It's the start of a new semester, his cellphone tells him with an almost comforting front screen, and there's no time to lose.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nerdy rant: I got a little bit annoyed googling in order to give Rashid some backstory and everything, and I feel like I have to share. I thought it could be interesting to talk about black muslims, especially non-American ones, so I made him a muslim, but a not very observant one, because he’s seen in the series drinking alcohol. It’d also make sense since he’s canonically Kenyan, and I felt he just has this big city guy vibe that could make him a citizen of Nairobi, which has an important muslim community. He also has an arabic-sounding name, which would make sense with him coming from a muslim family, so there’s that.
> 
> Then, there’s the linguistic element that felt important to me in order to highlight the separation between him and the rest of the cast, especially when it comes to Lionel’s perception of him. In the series, there’s two lines about his linguistic abilities. There’s the one about how he speaks five languages and does not need people correcting his English, and the joke about Rashid’s name being pronounced with a clicking sound. Thing is that Kenya only has one language spoken by less than a thousand people that has clicking consonants, Dahalo. Even there, Dahalo only has a handful of words using clicking consonants, so it’s unlikely that his name would be one of them, especially given how distinctly arabic in origin it is.
> 
> I’m guessing what happened in the writing room is that someone forgot to check up details (there’s a bunch of articles addressing the representation of first-generation African-Americans in Dear White People, it’s all super neat to read), but for the sake of continuity, let’s say in this verse that Rashid’s joke was meta, and he was mocking the stereotypes about Africa that are prevalent even in the black community. I also decided, because I can, that the five languages he understands are Kikuyu, Swahili, English, Arabic and Sheng (which more of a slang but I feel like Rashid is the kind of guy that likes inflating numbers in order to make himself look smart).

It's the first time they fight for real, and, of course, it's about work. That fact should annoy Lionel more than it already does, because he's never thought Silvio's workaholic front he puts up for everyone would end up rubbing off on him. It's fitting, even though at this very moment Lionel doesn't want it to be, in any way.

 

They're at the office, late at night, revising the article on Rashid. Lionel doesn't usually hand in articles so close to the publishing date, but writing had been difficult, for lack of better word. He'd talked to several members of the Muslim Student Association to get a better understanding of the situation, and it had been eye-opening, and yet he couldn't help but to feel that slight unease whenever he thought about what they'd think if they knew his sexual preferences.

 

It's strange, slipping into those labels, trying to wear them with both pride and some sense of self-preservation. While the experience feels liberating, it's also brought about whole new sets of problems that Lionel hadn't thought about first. He wonders how Silvio feels about these issues, but he doesn't ask out of weirdly placed sense of unease. Silvio seems unapologetic about his orientation just like he is about crushing people with words at time. Lionel can hardly imagine him struggling with it at all. Still, he remembers Silvio asking about intersections in being black and being gay, and maybe in some sense this is the kind of situations he was talking about. Lionel doesn't know yet.

 

Silvio's squinting as he reads. It's never a good sign when he squints as he reads. It makes Lionel nervous, for several reasons. There's something more intimate about how he's tried to translate Rashid's Skype interview into words, because Rashid is his friend in a way Troy, back when he was crushing madly on him, wasn't. His absence had been noticed at Armstrong-Parker, beyond the usual reminders by the BSU that they needed to mobilize in solidarity for their comrade. It was the little things, the tall towering figure, his occasional peculiar fashion choices, and the sound of Swahili whenever Lionel would pass by his door as he called home at the odd hours of the night.

 

There's also something about Silvio attitude ever since he's come back from Winter Break. They haven't had sex, for lack of time officially, although Lionel can't help but to wonder if there's something more, something that remains unsaid.

 

"It's good," Silvio says, but he doesn't mean it.

 

Lionel dislikes it when Silvio lies. He's so dreadfully bad at it, he knows it, and it almost feels like an insult to Lionel's intelligence when he tries to.

 

"You're not happy with it," Lionel states.

 

Silvio sighs, passes a hand through his hair. It's a little bit out of place, which is forgivable given the late hour.

 

"I'm not," he admits. "But that's not important."

"What do you mean?"

 

He does that thing where he leans back into his chair, making himself look like the big bad Editor he so desperately wants to be. He doesn't even realise he's doing it, and it annoys Lionel in a way that's hard to translate into proper words. It's right there along the mean gay front he puts up at times, the patterned shirts and the leather jacket that are nothing but a flimsy cover to hide himself behind. There are endless contradictions in the way Silvio can be both gracefully forgiving, caring in private and irrationally petty when it comes to his own pride.

 

"I mean... I mean that it feels incomplete. There's a dissonance between the recording of the interview you sent me and the written article, at least to me."

 

Lionel nods silently, but he still doesn't understand. Maybe he doesn't want to understand, this time. Silvio's driven to a point that borders on the manic when it comes to work. It's sometimes energizing, like an electric shock, but it's also exhausting at times.

 

"You've omitted to talk about what's should really be at stake," Silvio continues, his voice serious. "It's not the first time Rashid's experienced xenophobia pertaining to the fact that he's not a US citizen. I think it's very cute that you talk about how he's pretty much just a Muslim once Ramadan comes around and enjoys his bacon and beer on occasion, but it doesn't feel like it properly cover the fact that the immigration laws of this country are unjust and unfair."

 

There's that layer of emotion that's underneath Silvio's posed looks and voice, and it make Lionel both uneasy and eager to know more. He wants to touch his shoulder, his upper arm, feel his warmth, but his body won't move. He wants to ask something meaningful, but the right words all get stuck in his throat, and the wrong ones come out without him being able to catch them in their fall.

 

_Why can't you tell me what's the matter? Is anything even the matter?_

 

"How was Vegas, by the way?" Lionel asks suddenly, and he sounds accusing even though he doesn't want to.

 

It doesn't matter what he wants, because Silvio is all quiet rage and controlled breathing, now. He's silent, and that's when he's the most deadly, in a way, as he looks over Lionel in a way that never fails to make him feel small.

 

"What are you implying, Lionel?"

 

He shouldn't take the bait but he does. It’s an impulsive move and he knows this isn’t going to end well but it doesn’t matter. He isn’t in control of himself anymore.

 

"What should I be implying, Silvio?"

 

Silvio’s expression tilts, subtly shifting from slightly annoyed smile to cruel smirk.

 

"What do you want me to tell you?" His tone is sarcastic and Lionel hates it so much, all of a sudden. "That I did a bunch of coke and fucked strangers there behind your back so it can feed both your jealousy and your eternal victim complex?"

 

Lionel can see it clearly, now, the smudged makeup in the desert and the way Silvio is so terrible at lying. He should be able to read him now, know the truth from what his imagination can cook up, but he can't. A hazy fog comes over his mind, clouding his judgement with suspicions and vivid images of Silvio with another. It makes him dizzy with a kind of jealousy he'd never thought himself able to feel.

 

"Did you?" His voice almost breaks.

 

Silvio groans. He does that thing where he passes a hand through his hair to make it fuller, then flattens it again into shape.

 

"No, not this time. I didn't because I knew it would hurt you if I did. Shit!"

 

He takes a deep breath, but it doesn't keep his anger from burning him from the inside. Silvio is frightful when he's angry, cutting words that aim for the kill. He's everything Lionel wishes he could be sometimes, and it's as terrifying as it is beautiful.

 

“You sound like you resent me for that.”

 

Lionel thinks about exclusivity and how they’ve never talked about it, about the harsh, cool words Silvio had thrown at him when he’d called him up for a drinks and they’d both gone back to his apartment later that night. He wouldn’t usually say things like these, but it’s too hard to keep in, and they spill out messily.

 

“For fuck’s sake, I’m telling you that I care about you!”

 

Silvio slams his fist on the desk without him really wanting to, or so it seems. There’s a moment during which he seems to slip back into in own skin, looks up at Lionel, cold and unforgiving.

 

“For one second, is it possible for you to imagine that my goal in life isn’t to break your heart? That if you want things out of me, out of this relationship, or out of anyone for that matter, you have to maybe ask for them?”

 

It's too accurate, because Silvio is nothing if not an assassin with words. Lionel retreats into silence, looks at his own shoes. It’s the wrong move to make. His lack of verbal response only seems to make Silvio's wrath flare. It turns his features into sharp glass shards, ready to bruise. He gets up, picks up his coat, heads out the door, only to stop for one last stab with his hand on the knob.

 

"Rashid is right. The problem with Americans it that they always have to make everything about themselves. Especially you."

 

The door slams shut and Lionel knows he should make a move, get up and run after him, but he can’t. He closes his eyes, rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses, sighs. There’s his article still in his laptop, and the crushing feeling inside his chest that he’s messed up beyond the point of no return.

 

 

Radio silence lasts a full week. Lionel goes to class, spends time at the library, gets ahead of schoolwork for the semester. There's an uneasy feeling in his chest whenever he looks up at Silvio's number, late at night, wondering if he should apologise or extract apologies out of his editor. Silvio definitely is the type to hold grudges, and it's not like if they had ever been in a real relationship. Lionel does his best to ignore it, pulling himself back to bed and furiously masturbating to tasteless BDSM porn before falling asleep.

 

He's eating breakfast by himself in the mess hall of Armstrong-Parker, and there must be something about the way he's looking down at his cereal bowl because there’s a hand that comes on his shoulder. He doesn’t even have to turn around to know it’s Reggie.

 

“You look a little bit down for someone who managed to get his KKK-funded newspaper on board to help out with Rashid’s immigration troubles,” Reggie grins as he places last week’s paper edition in front of Lionel.

 

There’s his editorial on the front page, unedited save from the typos. It’s a message from Silvio, but it isn’t one Lionel has felt like deciphering ever since their fight in his office. He feels like throwing up, all of a sudden.

 

“The Hancocks are not funding _The Independent_ anymore, you know.”

 

Reggie shrugs.

 

“The Establishment is The Establishment. That article did get you a few points up on _Wokemon Go_ , though.”

 

Lionel had guiltily downloaded Reggie’s app over the break, with all the memory freed from deleting his _Grindr_ account. It was, as expected, scarily addictive. Reggie, for all the ranting he did about The Man and AmeriKKKa, was scarily gifted for replicating the mechanisms that turned Silicon Valley’s very specific type of venture capitalism into success stories.

 

“It’s not that hard to beat Troy at videogames anyway,” he mutters under his breath.

 

Reggie’s hand come out once more to pat his back.

 

“If they’ve gamified the dating experience, I’m pretty sure it’s time to do the same with the revolution,” he says.

 

There’s something bitter about his words, as if he knows something more, or maybe Lionel’s inventing things now. It quickly dissipates as he shakes his head, passes a hand through his cropped hair. Lionel remembers vaguely his chat with Joelle, and the way she’d frustratingly talk about Sam White’s endlessly complicated love life, especially when it came to turning down a guy like Reggie.

 

“Are you coming to the occupation tomorrow?” Reggie asks. “We need our trusty little journalist as usual, you know.”

 

Lionel knows Al’s crew within Black AF, with their knack for pun-y little hashtags, found some sort of insult to the current president’s literacy to plaster all over campus and the internet. It’s witty, and there’s a snarky little voice in the back of his mind that sounds way too familiar.

 

_Is this the kind of stories you want to write? You sound like you’re scared of taking a formal stance on the topic. You told me you’d write an editorial, but this is all fluff and no bite, Lionel._

 

The memory of how obscenely Silvio’s mouth curl around the L in his name makes him wince.

 

“Sure, I have an afternoon class on that day but I’ll try to make it,” he says flatly.

 

Reggie has a subtle double-take on him as he does it, without actually asking anything. It’s funny, because as much as Reggie and Troy love to hate each other, in some subtle ways, they have more in common than they’d like to admit. Lionel wonders if it’d be possible for them to talk about these things at some point, knows that it won’t happen. Reggie will never forgive Troy for getting arrested for the cause before him, ever.

 

“That’s my man,” Reggie laughs, and it’s so obviously forced. “I gotta run, as much as I love chatting with you, Data Science is a bitch and I can’t skip those lectures no more, you see.”

 

Lionel nods, bids him goodbye, and it’s only once Reggie’s disappeared that he can let himself fall back into self-pity. His spoon goes through a soggy piece of cornflake, and he realises he’s not hungry anymore. He trashes his half-eaten meal, rolls his shoulders, tries not to look up his phone, does it anyway. There’s no message from Silvio, and he knows he should reach out, but he can’t, out of some misplaced sense of pride.

 

He goes to class, his mind a hazy fog, hardly concentrating on his Early Modern Era elective. It’s the mixture of terrible pedagogy and mind-numbing relationship concerns that make him dizzy.

 

Silvio is the one who says all those terrible things, and he’s the one who screams and yells to get his way, strikes where he knows it hurts the most. Still, Lionel isn’t stupid enough not to realise that he’s been plastering his own insecurities and trust issues over him, ever since the start, in ways that are subtle yet perfectly noticeable. Troy is an idiot when it comes to certain things, but he’s not wrong with that.

 

Lionel should just ask what’s wrong, yet he doesn’t do it, hasn’t done it even though he’d meant to for weeks already. He takes notes during the lecture, but his heart isn’t in it. There’s a text message from Al that reminds him of tonight’s #BooksAgainstBorders event, and a link for him to subscribe to Black AF’s Twitter account, for what seems like the hundredth time, without success. It makes him smile, a little, even though it tastes sour, as he opts to go protest for Rashid, after all.

 

 

There’s a surprising amount of people that show up to occupy the library’s hallway leading up to the administrative offices, both on the BSU’s invitation and on the MSA’s part. Lionel’s whisked around the small group gathered in the front entrance by Sam, who’s speaking in that powerful organisational voice that hide the vulnerability she lets slip when she thinks no one is watching.

 

There’s the usual BSU faces, along with some new introductions to be made. Fahida, the president of the MSA, stands out beyond her petite frame, with her bright red hijab and her sophisticated French accent. She greets Lionel with a generous smile as they’re introduced swiftly, before heading away to talk with what seems like other members of her association.

 

“I’m surprised Kurt Fletcher and _Pastiche_ aren’t trying to knock you down again like they did last time,” he tells Sam as they finally have some time to breathe.

 

Sam has an acid smile. They’re going to enter the library anytime soon, and she knows it’ll be a delicate matter to take care of. She looks tired, all of a sudden, even though she’ll never admit it out loud.

 

“Kurt is a card-carrying Democrat, as surprising as it might be, so he’s not going to wreck a political protest against a Republican president. He’s too busy running pseudo-intellectual humour pieces about the latest elections anyway.”

 

Lionel remembers vaguely clicking on some article posted on _Pastiche_ ’s Facebook page, and how weirdly serious the content, with its grand words like _failures of the New Left_ and _missed opportunities_ had felt to him.

 

“Wow.”

 

His both annoyed and surprised expression manages to make Sam smile, which is fine, he guesses.

 

“I know, it’s amazing how office politics work sometimes on this campus.”

 

She pats his shoulder and Lionel wishes he could get himself to ask her if she’s okay. He knows her breakup with Gabe had been a delicate matter, but she’s yet failed to talk publicly or privately about it, or so he heard from Joelle.

 

“Anyway, thanks for coming. It’s going to be a long night, but we’re glad to have you.”

 

Lionel smiles as she leaves to take care of others newcomers to the protest, looks up to the sky. There’s the very distinct foggy white line of a jet engine fading out over their heads, and Lionel wonders if it’ll be one bringing Rashid home that will be flying over Massachusetts soon.

 

 

There’s an element of karma in the frequency at which one sees familiar faces around campus. Lionel can’t help but to think that he’s done something terrible in a past life, for he’s always had terrible luck with avoiding running into people he doesn’t want to run into.

 

“Isn’t that your boyfriend?” Joelle asks, and Lionel does his best to keep his face from looking too stupid.

“No.”

 

She makes that snappy humming sound that instantly gets Reggie’s attention. They’ve somehow ended up sitting together in the hallway, as sit-ins made Lionel nervous and he’d figured they wouldn’t mind him there too much. Chatting had been weird, especially with the strange sexual tension that never seemed to quite dissipate whenever Reggie and Joelle spoke together for a long period of time.

 

“Boyfriend?” Reggie asks.

“Lionel’s.”

“No!”

 

Lionel’s interjection gets Silvio’s attention somehow, and their gaze meet. He’s wearing one of those stupid dress shirts under a cardigan again, and it annoys Lionel because he knows those are for date nights or job interviews or both. It doesn’t last but it makes Lionel’s face change in a very noticeable way because Reggie picks it up, looks puzzled for a moment.

 

“Are you…?” he’s about to ask but Lionel gets up and leaves before he has the time to finish his sentence.

 

He somehow manages to corner Silvio with a few platitudes to whoever he’s talking to (tall, handsome, well-dressed middle-eastern guy that make Lionel ridiculously self-conscious even though he doesn’t want to admit it to himself) and drag him in the nearest empty bathroom. His mind involuntarily jumps to that one time he’d thought he’d make-out with Troy by the urinal, but it’s quickly pushed to the back of his head. He needs to set this clear.

 

“Did you plan this, Silvio?”

 

Silvio groans. Lionel is reminded of his words about Americans and self-centered perceptions. It still hurts to think about it.

 

“I made-out with Ahmed from the MSA at a dance party organised by the Fine Arts Department during freshman year,” he shrugs. “Turned out his bi-curious phase ended a few months later, but we’ve been good friends ever since so he invited me to come.”

 

There’s a fleeting thought that goes towards the comments Silvio seems so fond on doing about the notion of crushing on straight roomates. Lionel had often wondered if this was based on a personal experience or not, but he hadn’t asked.

 

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I’m Latino. Surprise! Immigration policies tend to be something I care about on an intellectual and emotional level.”

 

Lionel bites his lips. He’s figured out already that there’s something in his article that had rubbed Silvio the wrong way in a manner that felt personal. Lionel feels weird about all of this, angry, a little bit, at the contradictions that seem to take up most of Silvio’s character. In a way, it also means that he’s human, even under the business-casual slacks and carefully calculated hairdos.

 

“I never thought you to be the kind of person to believe in civil disobedience, to be honest.”

 

To Lionel’s surprise, Silvio chuckles. It still has that slightly sarcastic edge, but it sounds oddly self-deprecating on Silvio’s lips.

 

“I don’t, but it doesn’t mean it’s pointless to try.”

 

Silvio passes a hand through his hair, shakes his head. It seems to take him a few moment to get his words together. It’s him being vulnerable again, and it’s interesting how he doesn’t seem to mind nearly as much as he usually does when he’s with Lionel. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn’t. It’s always so hard to tell.

 

“I’m sorry about the other day, Lionel. I was rude and mean, and you deserve better than that.”

 

He’s being genuine, there, honest, and it shouldn’t feel so alien to Lionel’s mind even though it does. He takes a deep breath, tries to put his mind together.

 

“No, it’s okay. It’s true that I’ve had this jealousy issue and that it isn’t fair for me to impose these things upon you. So... I’m sorry too.”

 

Silvio smile dejectedly, but it makes Lionel’s face warm up a little bit. He’s happy.

 

“Relationship assessment session?” he asks, and he has this playful fake-business tone to his words.

 

It makes Lionel’s chest feel less heavy.

 

“Could be nice, yeah.”

 

Silvio rolls his eyes, pats his shoulder.

 

“So... We’re dating now?”

“I’d like to.”

 

Lionel smiles

 

“Then we are in agreement.”

 

Silvio kisses his cheek, and it shouldn’t feel so silly even though it really does. It’s maybe because it’s Silvio, in a way, and he briefly buries in face in his hands in mild embarrassment after the fact. It’s cute in a way Silvio shouldn’t be, and he dismisses his own momentary weakness with a grimace.

 

“Let’s get out of here. Your friends will think we’re fucking like pre- _Grindr_ era twinks at a nasty nightclub.”

 

Lionel laugh, and somehow he finds himself reaching for Silvio’s hand, pressing it lightly before heading out again. It feels nice, yet he doesn’t think much of it, for once. Silvio just smiles back at him, almost too fast to really be a smile, and it makes Lionel feels like he can take over the world.


End file.
